proposal on own initiative to the City of Almere
Meanwhile, in a new neighbourhood near Almere, public gardens were laid out. This seemed an opportune moment to submit – unsolicited - the ‘stepping stone’ proposal. After all the earlier investigation Location 1, in the context of the ‘Metaphors for Space and Time’ study organized by the Bruggelings Foundation, had led us to conclude that it would be worthwhile to realize a design in the landscape whereby an optimal connection could be achieved between ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ perception. Horizontal perceptions are those which relate to space, whilst vertical perceptions relate to reflection; thus they can be seen as two perspectives.
The new country can be seen as an economic matrix overlying a natural matrix, with a centuries old clay sediment as buffer. Palimpsest ‘stepping stone’ strives to achieve a meeting between these two matrices. The economic matrix is a model for the external perspective, the natural matrix for the internal perspective. The meeting between the two is clearly structured and yet…..does the spirit remain separate?
commission: Land reclamation committee Eastern Emmen, with support of Waterboard Hunze en Aa's, and Mondriaan Foundation
Owner: Waterboard Hunze en Aa's
A portrait of the now virtually non-existent peat moor, at the spot where - until approximately 1920 – the Roswinkel bulwark stood. The bulwark was originally erected as a defense against the enemy. The enemy is long gone, but the leveling of the peat has made one victim: the water. Since the sponge of the peat moor has gone, and agriculture makes increased demands on the water level, the quality of the water in the area is much diminished and has practically become invisible. For the project ‘Was getekend, de Runde’ a new river bedding was proposed in which source water follows a course determined by past and present stories and longings. The ‘Fort voor het Water’ cherishes and nourishes this new water course. It is a place where parties, theatres and performances can be held – all in the middle of a hopeful landscape.
icw Maarten van Wesemael
commission: City of Pijnacker
As well as the green zones accessible to the public, there are also the privately owned green areas. Subsequent to the ZONERING project, a plan was made to present new residents with a gardening scheme specially adapted to the different landscapes of marshland, polder, city, park. The scheme was developed in collaboration with project designers, landscape architects, local horticulturists and garden centres. The resulting folder is presented to new residents when they sign their lease or deed of purchase. Throughout the planning and construction period artists give regular lectures in a local garden centre.
Edition: 14, color Xeroxes; two single gatherings in zigzag Thai paper cover (90x240x5mm)
The Woodland Park zoo in Seattle is famous for the way in which it strives to replicate, as closely as possible, the natural habitat of the animals. The freshwater otter is an amazing swimmer. Through a glass panel one can watch him swim up and down the stream, but only one turn is visible - the other is in ‘private’ waters. The booklet, with a zigzag back-to-back binding, is an endless depiction of this one visible turn.
Edition: 7, color xeroxes, calligraphy; bound like a contract in Ingres paper (115x310x4mm)
If one breaks the seal, one is supposed to have signed the contract. Inside are images of the forest floor of a northern rainforest (Hoh-forest in the Olympic Peninsula WA, USA), next to Xeroxes of rubbings of charcoaled trees. Words lead one from page to page and from one concept to another.
gallery Hof 88, Almelo
Sounds associated with distant regions; cars on highways, religious gatherings. A room closed off with a curtain is flanked by two works on 'feeling lost'. Entering the room one sees large projections of overpasses/underpasses photographed as if they were 'deserted churches'.
i.c.w. Anne Ausloos
Provincial Museum De Begijnhof, Belgium
publication: videotapes and Cdrom
supported by The province of Limburg, Belgium
To the left a room with a glass aquarium containing a brick. The sound of the brick absorbing water fills the air like a synthesizer composition. The room to the right contains sculptures: unfired bricks immersed in water reveal the phases of decay, then are fired, becoming 'frozen': sculptures. In the next room glass plates are exhibited on the floor. On these plates clay particles have landed: sedimentation. Glass + sedimentation are fired together in a ceramic kiln.
The fourth room contains a video installation. A video documents the suspense of the transformation, showing a constellation of fired spheres taken out of the water at different phases in the process.
commissioned by City of Pijnacker
De Watermachine is a proposal for making natural water purification visible and audible. An important ecological factor of the area is inherent in the circulation of the water. The water is naturally purified by using plants in low, slowly flowing water (helofytenfilter).
On a square at the park entrance is the meeting point where relatively ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ water meet. Here the visitor can see to what extent plants growing in ‘clean’ water differ to those growing in ‘dirty’ water. On the square the water is channelled through a bedding of black and white stones, causing a constant soft rippling sound. This then becomes part of the totality of sound which constitutes the ‘rattle route’ designed by landscape architects. Words which have a bearing on the direct environment are chiselled into the stones. Vertical lamps operating on solar energy mark the square (and park entrance).
i.c.w. Anne Ausloos
De Watertoren, Vlissingen
publication: 4 video's + CD-rom
In the now empty reservoir room of a former water tower a video recording is projected onto a large screen. Neither light nor sound intrude from outside. Sounds from within the reservoir are amplified and bounce from the ochre concrete circular wall. The projection: A sphere floats silently in a bluish light. It sinks slowly, gurgling, enveloped by clouds of reddish 'dust', and makes a tiny 'toink' when it reaches the bottom. Then invisible forces lift the sphere again and it rises, as if in slow motion, and bounces to the surface. With part of it protruding above the waterline it makes a sudden revolution, then another. Decay is accelerated when staccato air leaves the inside. Big bubbles burst LOUDLY and the sphere falls apart, landing with a loud THUMP on the bottom.
Reelaan, Enschede
In the central hall, where several doors give access to the spaces in this house, one window is a 'map'. Colours, words and structures refer to a sense of place. The early morning light shining through the window projects an ever changing painting onto the high wall.
Edition: 7, sealed Xeroxed photo’s bound in rings, gray board case with imprint (225x320x17mm)
A panoramic vision in eight ‘shots’ taken from one of the highest peaks in the North Cascades (WA-USA). Personalized symbols of the cardinal points are painted on the back of the photo’s. The originals are color-copied and sealed to keep the memory fresh. The binding (allowing endless turning of the pages) is perpendicular to the horizontal pan of the images.
Edition: unique, collages/monotypes, bound in black linen (150x290x10mm)
The pages are overlapping paper circles glued together with ochre paint. Together they give an impression of a geyser filling up and emptying again after an eruption.
Edition: unique, direct coaled tree-rubbings; bound in black linen (155x285x16mm)
A forest fire took place about ten years ago in the mountains of the Olympic peninsula (WA-USA). The charcoaled trunks are still there. This book contains coal-rubbings of these trees.
Commisioned by the Bruggelings Foundation
supported by Praktijkbureau Mondriaan Foundation
Icw Petran Kockelkoren, Frank van Helfteren, Maarten van Wesemael
A ‘good’ landscape is like a palimpsest, a manuscript which has been reused after previous words have been erased, but in such a way that the old texts remain legible. During the layout of the Flevopolder the landscape was described in terms such as virginal, yet at the same time the first (?) inhabitants searched for earlier memories.
In a study assignment (Metaforen van Tijd en Ruimte / Metaphors of Time and Space) the Bruggelings Foundation asked five artists to make a mental ‘map’ of a characteristic location in the Nieuwe Land of the IJsselmeerpolders. Maarten van Wesemael (cultural advisor), Petran Kockelkoren (philosopher) and Frank van Helfteren (photographer/acoustic artist) also contributed to Palimpsest, a study concerning methods of perception in the quest for memory in an apparently virginal landscape. The landscape retains earlier memories after all, as is confirmed by the discovery, years later, of creek ridges and by the excavation of a 5000 year old hunting camp.
i.c.w. Helmut Eisel, Susanne Bohner, Vincent Huijpen
Lonza industrial area, Waldshut, Germany
publication: box with five 'flyers', CD compilation
The factories are deserted. The polluted soil is being cleansed. No plans have yet been made for new industry or… ? In this area an industrial show is staged. In one of the big hangars is a ring of objects - wood, stone, iron. Four to five hundred people gather around it. The noise is deafening, the scene is chaotic. Then silence.. …only birdsong and the sound of a loom, echo's of a bygone era. Based on that rhythm a structure slowly evolves and a dialogues develops between the 'musicians' who play the objects, and the natural sounds, the sounds of a disappeared industry. A clarinet sings the story, and directs the narrative told in sound.
Icw Edwin Brinkhuis (programmer), Vincent Huijpen (sound engineer)
verPLAATSen. De Paviljoens, Almere
publication: boekje ACHK 4
The view through the windows of the pavilion is blocked, mainly with 'building materials' from the city under construction. Words painted on the higher windows throw legible shadows. A painter's box with (fired) imprints in clay of the senses, tiny paintings made up of meaningful colours and forms, an atlas, and a variety of maps from different cultures all serve to create a context for a 'sound map'. If one walks on the white boards on the ground, sounds emerge from the speakers mounted on the wall in a corresponding grid. The sounds represent past, present and future expectations for +the New Land (land reclaimed from the sea, 30 years ago).
multi-color lino-cuts on Japanese paper, bound in slate
Edition: 7 (200x135x9mm)
Where the Yakima river and the Naches conflux a high wall rises from the otherwise ‘flat’ northern land. To the south one can see the valleys that lead directly to the Columbia river. A narrow path along this ‘cliff’ has been in use for centuries. The Native Americans passed it yearly on their way to the Colombia salmon feast, leaving layer upon layer of pictographs in the rock.
calligraphy on music sheets, cardboard print inside covers, sewed in Thai-paper, 15 gatherings in a grey linen box
Edition: two boxes, each gathering unique (350x250x40mm)
This is a collection of proverbs containing the word ‘vogel’ (bird), or where the name of a bird is used. The proverbs have been noted as though they were the text of a composition, and each composition bears, as title, the name of an extinct species of bird. There is no music notation.
language of Nature
language of science
language of culture
language of art
callygraphed on different kinds of paper, bound on cord between plywood covers
Edition: one of a kind (510x335x40mm)
These books were made during the performances of the project Ornithologie Schaduwen. They are calligraphic portrayals of the shadow of a bird in flight. A silhouette has been made for each bird extinct since 1600. Nature on reed paper, science on millimeter paper, culture on different kinds and colors of Japanese paper.
language of art
i.c.w. Michael Pestel (USA)
Apollohuis, Eindhoven
publication: CD + booklet + folder
Paul Panhuysen's (the owner) studio is situated on the floor above the gallery and contains a big bird house with song birds: The Kanary Grand Band. Birdsong carries softly through the ceiling. When the performance starts in the gallery there is an electronic connection in images and audio with the bird house upstairs. Ten members of a choir whisper bird proverbs and write them down with chalk on slates, causing a ticking and screeching sound. Hans Kingma counts the names of extinct species called by Jeroen. Jeroen calligraphs tiny shadows/birds in flight profiles, in a book filled with music paper.
Kevin Shey and Michael Pestel produce sounds to which the KGB responds attentively, almost competitively.
After the performance the music stand remains in place, with the scores and cleanly-wiped slates still on it. The four books, filled with shadows during the four performances, are exhibited. On the drawing table a monitor replays the performance over and over: a hand drawing shadows of birds on music paper.
language of culture
i.c.w. Michael Pestel (USA)
Avifauna, Alphen a/d Rijn
publication: CD + booklet + folder
The people attending the performance are taken on a tour through the aviary. While The people attending the performance are taken on a tour through the aviary. While visiting the kitchen, a room, … texts and fragments of stories exploring the special relationships between people and birds are read out loud. In one of the bird-rooms the 'exhibited' birds start a duel or duet with Michael Pestel on wind instruments and Kevin Shey on percussion. Hans Kingma writes proverbs 'aloud' on the crossbeams of the room. Van Westen calls out the names of extinct species and paints a shadow for each of them.
After the performance a monitor placed in the room continually repeats the painting of the shadows which took place during the performance. Speakers on the cages produce bird proverbs in five colonial languages.
language of science
i.c.w. Michael Pestel (USA)
Friesian Museum for Natural History, Leeuwarden
publication: CD + booklet + folder
A ring hangs in the inner court, covered with Dutch words containing 'vogel' (=bird). During the performance sounds of local birds, together with Michael Pestels wind instruments and Kevin Shey’s percussion, echo the song of extinct birds. Jeroen van Westen paints a flying shape in a big book, one for each name that Hans Kingma - looking through binoculars - reads aloud from the gutter around the court. Several pairs of binoculars have been placed at strategic points throughout the museum so that visitors can personally read the names painted on the gutter. After the performance a monitor placed in the canteen continuously repeats the painting of the shadows during the performance.
language of nature
i.c.w. Michael Pestel (USA)
National Park De Weerribben, Ossenzijl
publication: CD + booklet + folder
A circle is mowed in the reed, around a dent in a boardwalk. From the dent one part of the boardwalk is directed towards the rising of the sun, the other towards the setting of the midsummer sun. Names of the locally endangered bird species are engraved in the boards.
During the performance the sounds of local birds, together with Michael Pestels wind instruments and Kevin Shey’s percussion, combine to form an echo of the extinct bird species whilst Jeroen van Westen reads their names aloud. As he does so he paints a flying shape in a big book, like shadows of the extinct species present in the air above the circle. Hans Kingma walks up and down the boardwalk reading, now and then declaiming a proverb concerning birds. After the performance a monitor placed in a workers trailer continually repeats the painting of the shadows during the performance.
Van Stolks park, Hasselt (Ned)
publication: catalog
A music stand is a central feature in the 19th century Van Stolks park. The park is a true collection of aboriginal and exotic trees and shrubs, exhibited in English landscape style: a sublimation of nature. Pasted to the ceiling of the music stand is a large photo of a Douglas fir (also present in the park), photographed in it's natural habitat. A collage of randomly taped fragments of soundtracks, taken from televised nature documentaries, plays in the background.
icw Maarten van Wesemael
Commissioned by Thieme Publishers + City of Zutphen
Approved, but not executed
Form, plantation and object combine to form an eye. Each individual part refers to a characteristic of the immediate landscape, inhabited since prehistoric times. The sketch assignment, destined for the Thiemeplein in Zutphen, was completed together with Maarten van Wesemael. The work was approved but not executed for the proposal implicated a total redesign of the (recently made) existing small park.
The design was made for a small play park surrounded by a few ecological houses. The wells suggest the ‘pupil’ of the eye, and the walls of the wells are the rim of the iris. The rocks carry imprints of plants which used to grow in the vicinity and objects found nearby. The eyeball is represented by the river dunes where the first inhabitants settled. The eyelids/lashes are the hedges which, throughout the centuries, separated the yards.
commission: individual patron
Seven ceramic plates (made from locally excavated clay) bearing imprints of the soil taken from specific locations in the neighborhood of Hanner. These prints of forest, road, field etc. combine to tell the history of Schwarzwald.
They were commissioned by an individual patron and now hang in his house along a winding staircase which climbs from the cellar to a balcony overlooking Hänner, Schwarzwald, and the Alps.
event Triade
Groot Graffel, Warnsveld
publication: catalog
The grounds of The Wellen a mental institution look like a forest on one end, and like a large park at the other. A path winds through the park, enters the forest and leads to an open space. In this open space four benches are placed in a square. Seated on one of the benches, looking at the trees, one sees signs and words like colored scars, both referring to orientation.
i.c.w. Vincent Huijpen.
Edition, no limit, available on Cd.
A collection of sounds, organized by association of the sounds to the basic elements accordingto the Greeks: Ether, Air, Water, Earth, Fire. First presented in the show Orbis Terrarum at the Hewelett Gallery, Pittburgh, PA, USA.
drawings-stencils
Edition: one of a kind (270x370x25mm)
During two performances in the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Michael Pestel explored the possibility of communicating, by sound, with the birds in the marsh room. Names of birds extinct since 1600 were spoken aloud, thus lengthening and structuring the performance. For every species a shadow was created in ink during the first performance. During the second the shadow image of a hand was created by blowing paint through a pipe while using the hand as 'stencil'.
Edition 150, (170x250x25mm)
Published by PlaatsMaken, Arnhem, NL
In five gatherings, each dedicated to one of the classic five elements, possible relationships are made with concepts, shapes, materials and colours. Parallels are created with my personal cosmology. Nothing can ever be certain or true: the book has no up or down, no front or back, no cover or content, … The book is silkscreen printed on Tyvek and translucent Synteape. Both of these are artificial papers and are completely weatherproof, as is the red cedar cover, and therefore appropriate for outdoor use.
various materials, in a box
Edition: one of a kind (400x400x400mm)
The earth is flat, supported by the sea. The sun and moon circle the world, the heavenly skies are like a dome defining the spherical space in which the earth revolves. Darkness all around.
Edition 4: bound in grey linen (293x390x28mm) presented at a semicircle reading table coming with the atlas, hanging from the wall (1.06m across). The book leans against two footprints in the reading table.
An atlas in which I further explore the constellations, as in ORIENTATION and in Up and Down. The maps are mono prints, the constellation of textual concepts are printed on transparent acrylates. On two other transparencies - Afar and Away - two possible positions for a traveler are demonstrated. In two other color images - both entitled Source - something which the traveler took from the landscape he visited is shown.
Edition 14, odd numbers Dutch, even English. Map and audiocassette in a wooden lacquered box (100x140x50mm)
He secretly traveled with the Portuguese in order to get to know their route to the Far East. In his book he describes not only the routes, but also where and how to find different products. A wooden box contains two descriptions. One is a spirally folded double-sided map with feathers on one side and breeding territories on the other. The second description is a binaural sound recording which can be heard through headphones.
laser-Xeroxes on paper, folded like maps, bound in linen
Edition: 14 (210x145x30mm)
A set of four maps (North, East, South, West) depicting four constellations of words surrounded by lots of space. These words symbolize an attempt to define one’s position in the world. Possession of a set is an invitation to identify with the artist’s position – or to make one’s own interpretation of ORIENTATION. The cover photographs illustrate how the work was executed in Jeroen's studio.
Edition: 4, numbered North, East, South, West (approximately 350x600x10mm)
Presented in a Plains Indian's suitcase (parfleche) are four books which combine to give an analysis of a twentieth century city in the USA. In 1992, five hundred years after Columbus’s first journey to the New World, an attempt was made to interpret this city, both physically and spiritually. The presentation is done a such a way that every reader can explore certain streets of the city (Book I: 200 photo's of streets whose names refer to Native Americans); look up (wishful) interpretations of their names (Book II: texts exploring the etymology of names, some illustrations); get a general idea of their location (Book III: a spirally folded double-sided map); and finally to listen to Native American inhabitants (Book IV: two audio cassettes with five monologues).
Everything is bound in parchment and the parfleche is made of rawhide.
Edition: unique, bound in leather, (500x650x25mm)
An Atlas that attempts to intellectually define topos: a sense of place. The painted images (tempera) are derived from sewer covers found in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They relate to all kind of world maps. The set of maps starts with the T-map as first depicted in the 12th century book ‘Etymologea’, representing the beliefs of the 'encyclopedist' St. Isidore of Seville who was active in the 6th century. The three known continents were associated with three sons of Noah. These kind of maps were in use till the time of the great explorers of the early sixteenth century.
collection cards in a holder, covered with colored paper
Edition: 25 (70x93x7mm)
A set of representative collection cards selected from different categories: things that are worth showing your friends, worth knowing about. It’s a statement about what’s hot at a given point in time, a kind of commemoration. Each set was sent from Pittsburgh to friends, colleagues and collectors in The Netherlands.
Edition: 14 (90x15x235mm)
Faced with nine black and white panoramic pictures, one is put in the position of the trees of the forest, forced to look out at the forest from within. The pictures (laser copies) are on the inside of the folded pages. The outside of each page shows trees, made with colour cardboard prints. Each book is bound in linen and placed in a cassette made of wood and linen.
(120x120x240mm)
Three sets, each consisting of seven (fired) clay tablets. The 'engravings' are in fact imprints, achieved by imprinting the still wet (and therefore flexible) clay onto beech, lork, and pine tree. These 'hermeneutic' sets are individually packed in a protective wooden box.
1990-1992
Edition 7: 140x14x210mm
A Chinese bound book, with cassette, in which black and white pictures - reproduced by a color laser copier- show parts of the crust of the earth as readable typography. It tells how the inner forces of the earth made contact with the outside. The photo's were made in Death Valley, USA
Edition: unique (750x550x1800mm)
An open book, made of two parts of a split beech, between which are 5 sheets of painted glass. The paintings do not overlap, so that the transparency of the material allows one to see the complete image when standing in front of it. Together they show the evolution/ origin of our Latin alphabet. The story revolves around the letter A which is derived from the hieroglyph depicting a bull. This work was commissioned by the OBD, a provincial central library service. It is on permanent display in the hall of their office building.
Edition: 14 (185x300x12mm)
In this book pictures of rock paintings are placed opposite photos of the same animals as those depicted in the paintings. The photographer has often been able to capture animals at the same moment as the painter once did, hundreds of years ago. The color photos are made in Botswana and Zimbabwe. In the book they are reproduced with a color laser copier on Van Gelder Simili Japon Paper, and bound in leather, skin and linen.
Edition: unique (350x350x200mm)
A never ending codex with very many pages, showing a repeating sequence of drawings of a flying bird. The book is kept in a mysterious black box.
Edition: 1000 + 25 e.a. (105x148mm, A6)
A publication in the SLIB-series, on invitation of the SBK-Zeeland. In this double book, black and white photo's fill the pages. One series is of water (twelve photo's, increasing and decreasing in density) the other of earth (one photo, printed twelve times, increasing and decreasing in density). Taken together the two series are like the ebb and flow of the tide. Although there is no text it is nevertheless a book that must be ‘read’. The lithos are made with a scanner, the prints in 80 lines p cm.
Edition: 14 (125x125x15mm)
AUF und NIEDER, HIN und WIEDER/ UP and DOWN, TO and FROM. Six black and white pictures depict a tree from top till bottom, with a scar running along it’s entire length. The left page of the book shows the tree from the top down to the bottom, the right page of the book shows it the other way round. The tree stands in the Wutachschlucht, an extraordinarily beautiful nature reserve in the otherwise much cultivated Schwarzwald.
The photo's are reproduced with a canon laser copier, the book is bound in linen and the cassette is made of wood.
Edition: each one is completely unique, the concept will be repeated 7 times at the most, in different sizes and with trees originating from different places.
No 1 Ootmarsum, height 500mm, 14 pages.
A tree tells its own story, in its own language: a book in which the pages are thin slates of the tree, while the cover is made by two thicker outside parts of the tree. It is bound in leather on cords in the classical way.
commission: initiated by Van Eyck Art Institute, Maastricht
Two bookshelves containing rocks the size and shape of “medieval"? books, and one hand-written book. Thus an image is projected of the relationship between man and landscape in Limburg through several centuries. The eastern bookshelf contains a selection of natural rocks such as those found in Limburg; the other shelf contains cultural ‘rocks’ produced from Limburg’s raw materials. The book on the table is classically bound and contains drawings and texts (legends, scientific information, interviews) which relate to the ‘books’ on the shelves.
The library was originally designed for outdoors and later adapted for indoors; first for the National Geological museum in Haarlem, and now on permanent display in the Natural History museum in Maastricht.
